Submitted May 12, 2006
Does any remember the "dinner bell?" It was a "rolling store" operated by Mr. Matthias. It was an open air truck that roamed the neighborhood and as the truck rode down the street there was a big bell on the front of the truck that would ring. It was a big red truck and it had almost everything from eggs to turnip greens and tomatoes, corn, potatoes and you name it. These were all fresh vegetables. He would stop in the middle of the block and if he didn't have what you wanted, he would bring it the next day.
We didn't have city garbage collection. There was a man, Mr. Gault, who had property on Monte Sano Mountain and he would collect the garbage in the city and dump it on his property on the mountain for a monthly fee.
We didn't have city water, but we had a big well that we got water out of with a bucket and a rope. We didn't have a water heater so the water had to be heated on the stove either to take a bath, to wash dishes or even do laundry. We had an old ringer washer and a couple of #3 tubs for the clean clothes to fall into and it also doubled as a bath tub.
Some in the neighborhood didn't have electric refrigerators They had an "ice box" and the ice man would come around and deliver ice. There was a cardboard piece of paper that had 4 different numbers on it - one in each corner of a square. The numbers were 5, 10, 15, & 20. You would drive a nail in it and hang it on the front porch somewhere so it could be seen. The amount of ice a person wanted was relative to the number that was at the top of the cardboard square. If you wanted 5 pounds of ice, you would rotate the square with the 5 to the top. Us kids would always congregate at the ice truck to get a piece of ice where the driver would use an ice pick to separate the different sizes of ice. One company was Home Ice and Coal Company. They sold coal in the winter and ice in the summer.